Phase
by YamiTami
Summary: In all his life and all his crimes, there was only one thing Matt Engarde ever regretted. //spoilers for the relevant case, a softer M for a not terribly explicit wet dream//


**Since people are still interested in my fics over here and FFN has fixed a couple (but not near all) of the issues it's been having, I'll start posting my stories here again. This is really against my better judgment and if they screw up so that dashes disappear or the ads somehow get more annoying, then I'm not coming back. It's bad enough they still don't allow tildies for no apparent reason.**

**I'm posting this in chapter one of all my stories so everyone knows where I can be found. See my profile for the link to my homepage.**

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_It's just a phase_, Celeste said, _just the bickering of two men who never stopped being boys_. She said it often, and the words were always accompanied by a roll of her eyes and the flick of her ponytail as she turned and left the room.

In the beginning.

As time passed the frequency of her turn-of-the-heel exits waned; the fights came too frequently to expend that much drama on each and every one. Her exasperation with their immaturity grew exponentially, as did the number of times she pointed it out. It grated Matt's nerves to the point of breaking, but it wasn't as though she was anyone really worth getting old-fashioned angry with (unlike _some_ other trash)... but she did need to be proved wrong.

So Matt started his campaign to show Celeste exactly _how_ mature and sophisticated he could be. At the unexpected flutter of her eyes at one piece of flattery, he decided to step the gentlemanly act up to seductive. He succeeded in luring her to his bed for a while and even stemming the unsolicited advice about his feud with Corrida, but soon grew bored with her. She really should have felt honored; he spent quite a few nights deciding whether he should let her down easy or hard.

Eventually he settled on easy so he could still use her as his manager. When she still got distraught and accusing, he pulled out his ace. Laying on the guilt of her being his first and how he didn't know what he was getting into... oh, it worked like a charm. And she believed it, and she even _thanked_ him when he said they could still work together.

Of course, her professional resilience could never match his, not when he still looked at her wistfully from time to time. When she gave her notice he rejoiced; now he could find a younger manager with a little more pizzazz, a little more color... Celeste's protégé quickly became a prime candidate. He couldn't go after her right away, couldn't seem too eager or too desperate, but the days spent with the drab _male_ manager the studio sent over were pure torture. Matt may have been in love with himself and with breaking Juan Corrida, but he still enjoyed a little pleasant social interaction from time to time.

He regretted that wish when the studio manager finally decided to tell him something that wasn't '_be there in ten_.'

Celeste had gone to work for _HIM_.

Luck would have it that the idiot manager had enough sense to give this news after the day's work was done. Matt _seethed_ for three hours strait. _How __**dare**__ she go to __**him**_, he hissed as he clutched a brandy glass in a white knuckled grip, _how __**dare**__ she defy __**him**__ this way, how __**dare**__ she treat him as though he was just a silly __**phase**_... it went on and on. As the night wore on the alcohol and reason kicked in and he put his revenge on the back burner. He was at a delicate point in his career and couldn't afford to waste any time on her.

Yet.

A short time later the method of revenge presented itself to Matt in the form of the nobody section of Entertainment that he'd left on just to have some background noise. _Surprising development in who's married to who, gosh, I didn't even know these two were dating, here we have the latest engagement_...

Matt couldn't believe what he was seeing.

He stared unblinkingly at the screen and at the image of the happy couple standing arm in arm. He was grinning around that damn grass and she was pressed against his side as if she always belonged there.

_Jaw dropping news, you two_.

And Matt's jaw was hanging open. He never saw any sign, not even in looking back, that hinted at this. Not one glance held too long, not a change in Corrida's behavior... _nothing_. It was a bat to temple and he was finding it hard to wrap his head around the concept.

_Juan and Celeste._

The shock began to ebb away.

_Juan and Celeste._

His mouth snapped shut and the corner twitched.

_**Juan**__ and __**Celeste**__._

He laughed.

_Juan and Celeste! He's going to marry her and he has __**no idea**_... he threw his head back and laughed. _How could I have __**missed**__ this before_, the very definition of an evil laugh echoed in the modern apartment, _even without the relationship, the __**love**__... _cruelty, malice, cold-headed calculation,_ this is too good!_

_She's used goods and he has __**no idea**__..._

The slightest touch of self-pitying hysteria.

_But he __**will**__._

That night, Matt had The Dream. The Nightmare. The Bane of His Existence.

The Dream. He hadn't had it for almost half a year. He hated The Dream, but most of all, he hated the part of him that missed it.

It was different but still the same, updated with new costumes and sets but still the same old actors. New ratings, as the insults coming from his and Juan's mouth had reached a whole new plane of bad language since their school days. Screaming at each other toe to toe, so close he can see the individual rays of color flecking Juan's eyes. Words fly and then the fists. Always Juan's shirt is torn just so, just like the day before The First Dream. Just enough to bare a shoulder and a collarbone and a tiny sliver that shows a hint of one dusky nipple.

Another push, another shove, something barely coherent damning that piece of grass before reaching up and yanking it free. He never remembers if he throws it or drops it or keeps it tight in his grip. He stares at the mouth that's free of its usual fixture, and then The Dream departs from what happened during the fight that day.

_You know... there has to be something between my lips._

Eyes dart to the partially exposed chest.

_Why not your tongue?_

There is no lunge, no reaching, not even a transition. As soon as the last syllable is said they are on Matt's bed and engaged in a passionate kiss. They fight and roll even as they remain locked together, both vying for dominance as they always were and always will be. It is _intense_ and in The Dream Matt can _taste_ him. By the time he pulls the ripped shirt from his friendenemylover he's been pinned. Not secure enough to keep him there, and Juan would know that, but he also knows it doesn't matter.

Matt stops fighting.

There's a tongue on his neck and he tilts his head so Juan has better access. The hands holding his wrists against the sheets loosen and slide down his arms and across his chest. The guitar string calluses ruin the 'perfection' of the hands, but Matt doesn't care. The roughness is heady, it's good, and he asks for more. There's that smirk before a pink tongue darts out to lap at a toned chest, stomach, that thin trail of hair that disappears below the waistband of his pants. And Juan tugs on the belt loop and runs his fingers ever so lightly down the outside of his thigh... and then Matt asks him to keep going.

_Begs_ him.

His pants and underwear are removed and then Matt's propped up on his elbows and _watching_. Juan is in the traditional submissive role, with someone else's dick in his mouth, but they both know better. Juan isn't the one fighting back a moan. Juan isn't the one fisting his hands in the sheets. Juan isn't the one sent to _writhing_ because of how good it feels. Matt is completely at his mercy and _he doesn't care_. All he wants is for that wonderful suction to continue, for that hand to keep stroking his hip even as he is held down. He just wants to stare in wide eyed fascination at the sharp contrast between their skin when Juan closes a hand over a shoulder or his stomach.

All he wants to do it let Juan _dominate_ him.

The First Dream came when he was thirteen. By some cruel twist of fate his mother was passing in the hall on the way to the kitchen when she heard her son's fitful whimpers. When he bolted upright in bed with cold sweat on his brow and a warm stickiness coating his legs, his mother was standing framed in the hallway light. He gasped for breath and stared at her in fear. He could tell from the look in her eyes that he had not only moaned in his sleep, but moaned a name.

Her words were curt and strait to the point.

_Matty, this is a... phase. A disgusting phase, and you will speak of it to no one. I will not have people thinking I reared someone so flawed._

She turned away and took a step before one final thought struck her.

_Really_, she said without looking at her son, _if you're going to have an unnatural crush, you can't even aim higher than __**him**__?_

It turned out that she was right; The First Dream was just the result of unstable teenage hormones turning annoyance into desire for a few unconscious moments. He'd never had that sort of dream about another man, never felt attracted to another man. He'd even tried for about a month when he was sixteen, looked at guys and gay internet porn, but his curiousity never bled into arousal. Just a byproduct of adrenaline and puberty, something to wonder about and then forget.

The Dream never left him, but it wasn't because he desired Juan Corrida. He's submitting to the no-account because of what happened the day after The First Dream.

Sometimes, usually in the hazy moments between a heavy buzz and sleep, he would wonder. So many traits he inherited from his parents, as is the norm, but one of the biggest had never took root, never even touched him. He would wonder why in a detached and sleepy way. Why would he pick up on things as insignificant as the way his father drank his coffee and not on something so big? Was his brain just not built for it? Was he simply too smart to believe it?

Whatever the reason, the one and only time he ever uttered a racist remark was the day after The First Dream. A few words that tasted so foreign and bitter in his mouth and any friendship he had with Juan Corrida was forever lost. He never regretted losing that tenuous bond, but the way he did it never sat right with him.

In that moment, he was lower than Corrida.

In his whole life, it was the only thing that he was ever ashamed of.


End file.
